


The Perfect Plan

by Imagining_in_the_Margins



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Engagement, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Romantic Fluff, Self-Insert, Short & Sweet, Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagining_in_the_Margins/pseuds/Imagining_in_the_Margins
Summary: (Gender Neutral) Reader has a question for Spencer, but things don’t go according to plan.
Relationships: Spencer Reid & Reader, Spencer Reid & You, Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72





	The Perfect Plan

I am a person who always has a plan. It’s who I am. For as long as I can remember, I have always loved to know every step of the process. That’s part of what drew me to Spencer Reid.

Unfortunately, despite our shared love for predictability, his job didn’t really lend itself to rigid plans. So, for this particular plan, I reminded myself during each step of the process of all the different ways it could go wrong.

But, despite my best efforts and rather detailed coordination of details, I’d missed one. My plan gave me a timeframe of thirty specific days, and it was the thirtieth day. There was less than one hour remaining before it no longer mattered, and Spencer wasn’t home yet.

I had made a mistake. A miscalculation, if you will.

But just as I had resigned myself to the failure, the doorknob turned. With a voice made up of pure panic, my boyfriend burst through the door.

“Hey! If you get your stuff right now, we can still make it!”

At first, I just blinked. After a brief moment of confusion, however, I sprang into action.

“Oh my gosh! Hello!” I yelled back, running over and throwing my arms around him. He let our lips touch for the smallest fraction of a second, then his hands were shoving me away.

“We can kiss more when we get there — we have to go right now!”

I didn’t argue any further. The two of us scrambled around our living room and grabbed all the gear we knew we’d need for the excursion we’d been planning for the better part of a year.

It was hard to believe it was happening. My heart was pounding so hard I lost my breath before I’d even worked up a sweat in our sprint to the car. The drive to our destination went by faster than I thought possible, and I realized why adrenaline could be addictive. In that moment, I doubted I’d ever be as excited and nervous as I was that day as we started to unload the telescope and blanket in the clearing.

“I can’t believe we made it,” I muttered, and although my eyes were scanning the more visible stars, my thoughts were very much on earth.

“I know!” Spencer beamed, “And we have 30 minutes to spare.”

I took the first calm moment then, watching the way Spencer readjusted his clothes and brushed his hair from his eyes. Maybe I was just projecting, but something about him seemed equally nervous. I tried not to think about it. There was no room for negative thoughts.

“And you made me wait to kiss you,” I drawled, grabbing hold of the collar of his work shirt and pulling him close. “For shame, Doctor.”

Spencer kissed me first that time, and I let it last considerably longer than he’d allowed me. It wasn’t entirely selfless— it granted me the courage I would need for the rest of the night. But once I got my fill, I pushed him off in a similar manner. We broke apart in laughter filled air, and I barely got out my next order.

“Come on, set up the telescope!”

“Fine,” he pouted, “But I still think kissing you is more fun.”

I shook out the blanket beside him and tried to convince myself not to sneak too many glances at him in the meantime. It was hard. In the red twilight I could still see the way he would scrunch up his nose and bite his lip as he concentrated. He really was just way too damn cute.

Eventually, he hid his face behind the lens, and I was forced to distract myself from my thoughts my thoughts with words.

“How does it look?”

“It’s great! There’s no clouds, and the moon is a waning crescent so it’s not drowning out the light,” Spencer explained, thankfully still as excited as he’d been when our blood was pumping at double the current rate. “I haven’t put it in focus yet, but I can already see the comet pretty well.”

Glancing up at the sea of stars, I sighed at how little it made me feel.

_Maybe I’m making a mistake_ , I thought for exactly one split second before I turned to see Spencer staring up at the same sky.

_No_ , I told myself. There was no mistake. Of all the things I’d ever done, this was the one I could never convince myself to regret.

“Once in a lifetime opportunity, huh?” I responded, not really thinking the words through. If I had, I would have expected his immediate reply.

“That’s actually not true for a lot of people. But yeah, probably for us.”

I laughed at how utterly predictable of an answer it was. Because, like I said before, it was one of many reasons I loved him.

“I’m glad that I get to share it with you,” I told him. The words were shyer than I was used to, and it took a minute for us to get comfortable with my voice sounding meek.

Spencer parted from the scope just to look at me. I don’t know what he saw, but he smiled.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Me too.”

Just before my heart started skipping beats again, he tore his gaze away from mine. “L-Let me set it up so you can see it better,” he mumbled.

I avoided thinking about the way his voice shook, hoping that he was just flustered. Praying that he and his brilliant mind hadn’t figured out my plan. Begging the millions of stars above that he wasn’t anxiously crafting a way to say no.

“It’s... actually very beautiful.” His voice brought me back, just like it always did. And I realized then, as my hand dipped into my pocket without even thinking, that there was never going to be a perfect time.

There would always be fear, and pain, and worry. There would never be a moment where everything made sense. But that moment— that moment was pretty spectacular.

Spencer began his retreat from the scope, and I fell down onto my knee in tandem.

“You should take a lo—“ he started, but the words caught in his throat. With wide eyes and his mouth hanging open, I heard his breath begin to shake.

“Later,” I said softly, “I have something to ask you first.”

“What?” It was so weak, I barely heard it. But it didn’t matter, because I was lost in his eyes that were reflecting the setting sun. In those amber irises were my future, my heart, and my home.

I saw so many things when I looked at Spencer in that moment, and none of them were bad.

“Spencer...” I said through an equally breathy laugh, “Will you marry me?”

His reply was... unexpected.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

I wish I could say that I was heartbroken or angry, but I was mostly just confused.

Spencer, however, had practically bolted away from me and back toward the car, all the while yelling, “That—That’s not a no! Stay there!”

My other knee dropped down, settling on the blanket as I replayed the last few seconds on loop in my head. From the car, I heard him shout, “You can stand up though!”

But I couldn’t. Everything seemed to have frozen in place, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong. This was, after all, decidedly _not_ part of the plan.

So, I stayed there just like that, stuck and staring down at the band that remained safely nestled in a box in my hands. At least, I stayed like that until Spencer came tumbling back onto the blanket. He almost crashed straight into me in his rush, and if I hadn’t been in a state of pure shock I probably would have laughed.

Then, with rapid breath and a goofy grin, he held out a small velvet box.

And the first words I said after I asked him to marry me and he’d taken off running were, “What is that?”

Spencer took a deep breath to prepare himself but started laughing before the words came out. Muscle memory begged me to follow suit, but my mind was still paralyzed. He must have seen it on my face, too, because once he was able to breathe again, he explained.

“I was going to ask you!” he rasped.

Another moment of silence followed. My answer was probably equally unexpected.

“... What?”

“I was going to ask you tonight; that’s why I rushed you down here!” Spencer’s voice jumped an octave as his hands struggled to stay still and hold on to the item in his hand. He eventually settled for raising one hand to gesture to the telescope. “I just wanted to let you see the comet first, so you didn’t miss it!”

“Oh no, did I ruin the comet for you?” I gasped, raising a trembling hand to my face as my brain tried to keep track of what emotion I should be feeling.

Spencer seemed to know.

“Are you joking?” he laughed without reservation. Reaching forward and grabbing hold of my hand, he held it to his chest so I could feel the way his heart beat hard against it. “Who cares about a silly rock?”

“I-I mean—“ My mind slowly caught up to the reality unfolding before me, and the glimmer of a gem shined back at me from its resting place between velvet. I nodded down at the ring as I finally joined in his laughter. “I’m pretty sure that’s also a rock.”

Spencer shook his head and then nodded, and the contradictory motions somehow made perfect sense to me. He looked up at me, swallowing the lump in his throat and trying to bring back that feeling from before.

“It’s a way more interesting rock if you’re going to wear it,” he said.

Our hands separated, and his immediately went to remove the ring. He held it so delicately between his fingers that I wondered if he thought it might slip away and take me with it.

“Will you?” he asked, “Will you wear it?”

I bit down on my lip and I tasted tears that were almost sweet from the joy and relief. Each one that fell brought back the courage I’d felt before, and I eventually managed to answer him.

“I asked you first.”

There was no argument to be made because he knew I was right. He lowered his hands, but his eyes stayed on me.

“You want to know if I’ll marry you?”

I nodded.

“Yes,” he enunciated so there could be no mistake. Then to be doubly sure, he said it again. “Yes, I will marry you.”

I had a plan for that answer. But as I fumbled with the band that I’d gotten him, I could barely grab hold of his hand. He helped guide my fingers to his, and when the ring finally slid on, he let out a happy sigh.

Then it was his turn.

“And you’ll marry me, right?” Spencer asked through a laugh, even as I shoved my left hand in his face.

“Yes, I want to marry you,” I cried.

The words couldn’t come quickly enough. As soon as the rings were settled, and while we still kneeled on the cold ground, the two of us fell together in a sloppy, tear-filled embrace that felt even better than I’d planned.

The kisses couldn’t last nearly long enough. I’m pretty sure we would have stayed there all night, giggling and holding each other in the darkness. But we had come there for another reason, too.

And I am nothing if not a stickler for a plan.

“Wait!” I shouted, tossing Spencer backwards against the blanket for the second time that night. “The comet!”

Our left hands found each other, and we helped each other stand without ever breaking apart. Still together, we rushed over to the telescope, and Spencer wrapped both arms around my waist as I settled behind the lens.

“Do you see it?” he whispered in my ear.

“Yeah,” I muttered back as my eyes finally landed on the stars that had literally aligned for us to share that moment. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah.” Spencer answered. “It is.”


End file.
